According to sophomore Yonit Krebs, on March 9 she presented at Feminism Club her research on the opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment for her Scholars of Distinction Project, through the Minnesota Department of Education.

“I wanted to really focus on something that not a lot of people know about, and I myself didn’t know very much about,” Krebs said. “In an effort to learn more about the opposing side (of the Equal Rights Amendment), some people who I didn’t agree with, I chose to focus on the opposition, and specifically women who opposed an amendment created to give them equal rights.”

Senior president of Feminism Club Kirby Goodman said Krebs approached her about presenting her project on the resistance to the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the club.

“I’m always open to people coming in with new ideas for things that they want to do at meetings and (Krebs) approached me to talk about (opposition to the ERA) and it was exciting and people really liked it,” Goodman said. “We have had some parents in the past that are involved with feminism in their careers or just as a hobby, so we have had people come in and talk.”

Krebs said a requirement for her Scholars of Distinction project is documentation of a presentation of the research to an interest group.

“I chose to present it to the Feminism Club because I think that it is important that every feminist to understand why women don’t support feminism and why women oppose women’s liberation legislation, such as the Equal Rights Amendment,” Krebs said. “I don’t think one can effectively defend their view without any understanding of the other side’s interpretation.”

Senior Feminism Club member Emma Gruye said she learned valuable information from the presentation.

“I really liked (Krebs’ presentation on the ERA). I thought it was really well done,” Gruye said. “It was super clear, like what her point was, and I thought it was interesting because I didn’t really know about that before. I really enjoyed it, and I thought it was really informative.”

Feminism Club adviser Carley Kregness said the club has thrived since it began earlier this year.

“(The club leaders) organize the meetings and they’ve really had a lot, maybe two a month on average,” Kregness said. “It’s varied a little bit because sometimes they have opportunities come up, they find a speaker or something they want to do.”

Kregness said the club hosts a variety of local speakers, as well as students, to present information, and spends meetings discussing issues.

“They’ve had adults in the community that are active with feminist issues, or that work in jobs that are dealing with feminist issues, so there have been a couple of different outside speakers,” Kregness said. “One time they made posters to hang around school about why feminism was important to them.”

Goodman said she felt there was a lot of positive feedback after the Feminism Club meeting.

“I think (the meeting) went really well. I think myself as well as a lot of other people learned a lot, and Yonit seemed to feel it went well as well,” Goodman said. “We usually have between 15 and 30 people at the meetings, and we had somewhere in between probably about 20 people there, which was a good turnout.”

According to Goodman, Feminism Club meets in room C377 approximately two to three times every month.